FalconBC: Flow matching for Amortized inference of Latent-CONditioned physiologic Boundary Conditions

arXiv cs.LG / 3/23/2026

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Key Points

  • FalconBC proposes a general amortized inference framework based on probabilistic flow to jointly estimate boundary conditions with conditioning variables such as clinical targets, inflow features, and point-cloud embeddings of patient-specific anatomies.
  • It addresses open-loop models with known mean flow and waveform shapes and anatomies affected by vascular lesions by avoiding boundary-condition tuning in isolation and enabling joint estimation.
  • The framework amortizes training cost across clinical targets, improving efficiency relative to offline data-driven variational inference for boundary condition estimation.
  • The approach is demonstrated on two patient-specific models—aorto-iliac bifurcation with varying stenosis and a coronary arterial tree—showing versatility across arterial configurations.
  • By integrating geometry-aware representations with probabilistic flow, FalconBC advances patient-specific cardiovascular modeling and could inform clinical decision-making.

Abstract

Boundary condition tuning is a fundamental step in patient-specific cardiovascular modeling. Despite an increase in offline training cost, recent methods in data-driven variational inference can efficiently estimate the joint posterior distribution of boundary conditions, with amortization of training efforts over clinical targets. However, even the most modern approaches fall short in two important scenarios: open-loop models with known mean flow and assumed waveform shapes, and anatomies affected by vascular lesions where segmentation influences the reachability of pressure or flow split targets. In both cases, boundary conditions cannot be tuned in isolation. We introduce a general amortized inference framework based on probabilistic flow that treats clinical targets, inflow features, and point cloud embeddings of patient-specific anatomies as either conditioning variables or quantities to be jointly estimated. We demonstrate the approach on two patient-specific models: an aorto-iliac bifurcation with varying stenosis locations and severity, and a coronary arterial tree.